Parents and supporters of Ames Middle School are ramping up efforts to defend the community school from political interference.

Dozens of Ames parents are set to canvas the neighborhood Saturday morning to register voters and spread the word about community meetings being held by the LSC on Tuesday. They’ll hold a press conference at 11 a.m. at Ames, 1920 N. Hamlin.

Meanwhile, Ames’s Local School Council has heard nothing from CPS about what is planned for the school, according to an organizer for the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. The LSC will meet at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, with a community meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. that day.

As a community partner for Ames, LSNA coordinates a range of academic, social, and health support programming for students as well as activities for parents and community members, including ESL, literacy and math-science workshops. LSNA is nationally acclaimed for the success of its community learning center model.

Ames far outperforms Marine academically, according to LSNA, which calls Marine Academy a “pushout factory,” graduating just 56.5 percent of its freshman class four years later.

Mark Brown reported last December that enrollment declined at Ames when CPS removed two local elementary schools as feeders for the middle school. Brown suggested that Ald. Robert Maldonado, the main proponent of moving the Marine Academy into the Ames building, ought to “suck it up” and meet with Ames parents.

And Raise Your Hand notes in its weekly update that the Ames plan (whatever it is) is one of a slew of newly-announced projects — incuding a $17 million upgrade of Walter Payton High School and a new Noble charter high school across the street from Prosser High — that are nowhere mentioned in the district’s brand-new facilities plan.

“What was the point of the ten-year master facilities plan?” they ask.